9-11

I hadn't planned on posting about 9-11 but I read a post on Jack Yan's blog http://www.jackyan.com/blog/ and decided to write about it. (Jack has an interesting blog and shows a unique perspective on things as he's a New Zealander, you might want to check his blog out. He is also something of a celebrity in New Zealand which is interesting.) Concerning 9-11, I remember it well not because I lost anyone close to it but because I knew as it happened that everything would change. I later realized that 9-11 was just another in a series of attacks on the U.S. The attacks began with the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1991 and continued with the Khobar Towers attack, the attack on the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and the attack on the U.S.S. Cole. I remember the attack on the Cole particularly as I was in the Middle East at the time and heard what happened. It is chilling that the attackers actually drove their suicide boat around the Cole at least once and during that time waved to the sailors onboard the Cole before they rammed it into the Cole setting off a massive explosion that nearly sank the ship. It was only because of truly heroic efforts on the part of its sailors that the Cole was saved.

Like many Americans, I don't think we realized that we were under attack during the first World Trade Center attack, the embassy bombings or the attack on the Cole. It would take 9-11 to hammer that home. I'd finished my assignment in Bahrain in August of 2001 and was sent back to the states. I was busy inprocessing and in a little limbo as the shop I was assigned was reportedly going to be phased out. I was checking in at that shop when someone came over and said that a plane had gone off course and flown into one of the World Trade Center towers. I was stunned. I rushed over to the tv where CNN was broadcasting the event. As I continued to watch, we watched stunned as a second plane flew into the second tower. It dawned on us that there was no mistake when a second plane flew into the second tower. The horror continued as the broadcast showed people jumping from the towers to their deaths. It got worse because 40 or so minutes later, the towers collapsed and fell to the ground. Everyone was in shock. I knew everything had changed though I had no idea what the U.S. would do about it. Because of that event, the U.S. went into the Afghanistan, became friends again with Pakistan and would go into Iraq. 9-11 had enormous repercussions and still does to this day though scarily, some people just want to forget about it.

We can't afford to quickly forget about 9-11 because 9-11 won't be the last attack on the U.S. If the terrorists have their way, it will be just one in a series of attacks as it followed the previous attacks before it. The only reason the U.S. hasn't been hit again is because of the extraordinary efforts of the U.S. military, U.S. intelligence community and the U.S.'s allies. The recent plot in Britain proves that the terrorists have no plans of stopping their attacks. We need to remember that we can defeat the terrorists thousands of times (and we have) but they only need to successfully hit the U.S. once and they will have won. We also need to put aside any political correctness and profile certain groups at airports. We shouldn't be shaking down grandmas and U.S. Marines. (I've heard of this happening and I think it is seriously STUPID!) They're not the ones that are going to try to turn an airplane into a flying bomb. As I've previously mentioned, the terrorists have an entirely different sense of time. To those of us in the U.S., five years is old history and fifty is ancient history. Fifty years is nothing to these terrorists. I can assure you that 9-11 will stay in their mindset for some time and will seem like only yesterday to them. President Bush wasn't kidding when he set that this was going to be a LONG drawn out conflict. Lets make sure we remember 9-11 and realize that we must keep fighting these terrorists. If we forget 9-11, we will be doomed to repeat it in some way in the future.